"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Friday, May 31, 2013

‘Daily Caller’ story on IRS director’s many White House visits a bust

The Daily Caller story
that kicked off the latest round of finger-pointing and blame in the
IRS “scandal” currently gripping the right blogosphere and Fox News was
actually based on erroneous information. According to the Atlantic,
the editorial staff at the Caller overestimated the number of visits by
now-former IRS director Douglas Shulman by 146, claiming that Shulman
visited the Obama White House 157 times rather than the 11 visits he is
confirmed to have actually made.The Daily Caller eagerly reported on Wednesday
that Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee, visited President Barack
Obama’s White House “at least 157 times during the Obama administration,
more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the
president’s Cabinet.”

The Tucker Carlson-run conservative website failed to make the
distinction between the actual White House and the Eisenhower Executive
Office Building, which is covered by the Secret Service’s visitors’ log.
Shulman was required to meet with administration officials about the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” in
the Eisenhower Building. The Secret Service log also covers the New
Executive Building, which is located up 17th Street and off the White
House grounds. According to the Atlantic:

Shulman was cleared primarily to meet with administration
staffers involved in implementation of the health-care reform bill. He
was cleared 40 times to meet with Obama’s director of the Office of
Health Reform, and a further 80 times for the biweekly health reform
deputies meetings and others set up by aides involved with the
health-care law implementation efforts. That’s 76 percent of his planned
White House visits just there, before you even add in all the meetings
with Office of Management and Budget personnel also involved in health
reform.

Furthermore, there’s no proof that Shulman did or did not attend the
meetings, since there are no arrival or departure times listed. He may
have been scheduled to pass through the Secret Service checkpoints, but
this has little bearing on whether he did. Shulman’s time of arrival is
only confirmed for 11 specific events between 2009 and 2012.

“That does not mean that he did not go to other meetings,” wrote the Atlantic‘s Garance Franke-Ruta, “only that the White House records do not show he went to the 157 meetings he was granted Secret Service clearance to attend.”

At least one Shulman visit to the White House grounds had nothing to
do with IRS business or the ACA. Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly
asked Shulman in a Congressional hearing last week what would occasion a
visit to the White House for him.“Um, the Easter Egg Roll with my kids,” Shulman replied.

Franke-Ruta wrote
that Secret Service logs are a wildly imprecise means of determining
the comings and goings of visitors to the White House. The procedure is
not the only means of getting clearance to enter the White House
security perimeter. In large social gatherings like the aforementioned
Easter Egg Roll, people enter the White House gates in pre-cleared
carloads.

The Center for Public Integrity reported in April, 2011
that “(t)he logs include names of people cleared by the Secret Service
for White House entry who never showed up. The Center analysis found
more than 200,000 visits with no time of arrival, an indication the
person didn’t enter the White House though there is no way to know for
certain.”Even the Caller admitted
at the end of its article that “it is probable that the vast majority
of visits by major Cabinet members do not end up in the public record.”